Google Pulls the Plug On BlackBerry Gmail App

hypnosec writes "From later this month, Google has decided to stop providing its popular Gmail app for BlackBerry. This can be viewed as a shock for RIM as they are putting in strong efforts to prevent customer defections to handsets that run on Android and iOS. Thus, from 22nd November, BlackBerry owners will not be able to reach Gmail on their devices; only those users who already have Gmail installed will be able to access and use the Google app. On Tuesday, Google on its official apps update blog stated that the company will now be focusing on 'building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser.'"

Comments

Bad sumary much?

[Anonymous Coward]

This only affects the Gmail app, not accessing Gmail via BIS which is how almost all BB users access their Gmail.

Re:Bad sumary much?

[monzie]

I use GMail and Google Apps email on my Blackberry via BIS. I still have the GMail application installed on my BB though. Why?

- Advantages of GMail Native app on the BB

1. You can only search emails which are on the device. You cannot search emails which you have in your inbox but not the device. This means you can only search for emails which you received since you started syncing the device with GMail. By default Blackberry devices store messages only for 30 days ( you can set it to upto 120 days I believe). So you also cannot search for emails before 30-120 even if BIS was set to sync to it

2. There is no support for labels. BIS will, by default, forward All emails that you receive regardless of the filters that you may or may not have setup for your mailings lists and other stuff. To work around this, I have had to set up a "to-me" and "cc-me" filter on the device. That is of course, sub-optimal.

Advantages of BIS over GMail native application

1. Contacts and Calendar sync ( though the Contact sync can occasionally be a bit buggy

2. Attachment support - there is no way to send attachments via the GMail native application

3. Real Push(tm) support - other than when they have a "core switch failover thing" and your smartphone then essentially becomes a dumbphone.

Re:Bad sumary much?

[LordLimecat]

I use the app :( the search and labels features were kind of nice....

Re:Bad sumary much?

[fyngyrz]

If Google wants to build a "great email experience", they've got a few basic things to do yet where gmail falls down hard. For instance, gmail supports multiple reply addresses for those who manage more than one domain or have more than one email home, but the filters don't let you set the reply field based on the to: field, you have to do it manually every time, so errors in reply addresses are quite common; They don't properly support mono-spaced fonts, so server reports and other data that depend on field alignment come out trashed; the "themes" they offer are so basic they're almost useless, you can't control font or backdrop colors, so calling it a "theme" is pushing the envelope a bit. You can't delete attachments in order to manage the amount of space you use (obviously they're just trying to get you to go over the "free" amount so you have to pay, but it's a PITA no matter why it's done -- many emails I have have binaries attached that are one-time or throwaway, but keeping the email itself is very important to me (development issues, etc.)) I should also note that all of these issues were handled properly by Eudora over a decade ago -- these capabilities aren't exactly brand new ideas, or for that matter, difficult in any way.

I like web-mail, the convenience is very high, but Google's implementation is strictly amateur. Reminiscent of of Google base, although that is even worse -- adding broadly unpredictable unreliability and no usable support to a minimalist (read, amateur) feature set.

Garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

No self respecting BB user uses the Gmail app. It is clunky and slow. You use BIS with your Gmail account with the Gmail plugin. The article is tripe as well.

Re:Garbage

[bigstrat2003]

If being clunky and slow was something bad in BB user's eyes, they wouldn't be BB users.

*Flamebait, but also true

Re:Garbage

[reboot246]

BB's in anybody's eyes are bad.

You'll shoot your eye out kid!

This is untrue

[Cito]

Users will still be able to check their gmail with the browser. Google is not blocking blackberry users.

Gmail only pulled the gmail app, but there are 3rd party gmail apps, the blackberry mail app also checks gmail with no problem, and you can also use the browser to check gmail.

Re:This is untrue

[Sir_Sri]

If anything this might be the start of big companies getting the clue - we already have an app for that*, it's called a web browser.

*obviously that doesn't apply for everything yet, but they're working on it.

Re:This is untrue

[bigstrat2003]

Having suffered with a BB for my work phone for some time, I think that "awful" isn't really accurate. That's far too mild a term for the painful experience that browser offers.

As a blackberry user...

[damn_registrars]

I'll say that the gmail app isn't as universally useful on the blackberry as the gmail webpage. The biggest problem with it is that it is permanently linked to having data service available through your wireless carrier, while the webpage can work through your wireless carrier on a data plan, or anywhere that you have wifi (and most blackberries have had built in wifi for some time now). The webpage is at the point where it is very useful for the blackberry, and it supports at least two different modes for the phone depending on your needs as well.

So really, this isn't a big deal. Not to say that RIM isn't in trouble, but losing an app that wasn't that great to begin with isn't a huge blow to blackberries.

Re:As a blackberry user...

[beset]

I think I must have been one of the few users to like the Gmail app.

It's great for a number of reasons:

1) It doesn't weigh down your BB with loads of email in the core system
2) You load it up when YOU want to read your email, not when the email comes through
3) Closing it is a nice way of forgetting about work
4) You could search all your old mail

I actually got stuck in Madrid airport without BIS quite recently, so I tried the mobile web version of gmail. It was a terrible experience - it was unresponsive, the ui was too big, yet too cluttered, waiting for 2 pages to reload every time you wanted to look at a new email etc etc was a pain. And this was on wifi on Blackberrys latest and greatest (9900)

Long story short I will miss the gmail app. IT wasn't great, but it had a lot of plus points. Sure, I can got get the gmail plugin and set it up via the native app, but if I wanted to do that I'd have done it in the first place.

I've only recently converted to blackberry, I'm a fussy bugger about keyboards and it really can't be beaten. This makes me sad.

Well that's not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gmall app is bu©ggy and slowý
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Posting this via my Blackbýerry Býold

False

[pjh3000]

They're not pulling any app or email service, they're stopping development on a standalone Gmail app for BlackBerry, You can already get Gmail in the standard mail app and will continue to be able to do so.

Wary of this...

[ackthpt]

'building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser.'"

Seems to be a function of time that Google's products become worse; more whizzy, but add no value; useable interface replaced by inexplicable interface and really useful, neat ideas, are not implemented in favor or more cruft.

It's dead jim...

[Lumpy]

Honestly they failed to evolve. It's their own fault for not moving foreward.

The last couple of blackberry's were great, but it was too little too late. Many many corporations are switching to Android phones and iphones that do a lot more WITHOUT the horribly overpriced special blackberry server and service fees.

They not only missed the boat, they priced themselves out of the market.

Re:It's dead jim...

[bobcat7677]

Lets not forget that that horribly overpriced blackberry enterprise server was also buggy as *ell and a complete bear to support. I can't count how many times I got paged to log in and restart the blackbery server service because it crashed for some unexplained reason so my bosses could get email. Now they have Iphones and Droids that just work and the blackberry server was retired...and I get a little more sleep.

RIM's best bet

[LoudMusic]

I still think RIM's best bet is to make an enterprise grade 'app' for Apple iOS and Android to provide Blackberry style service on non-RIM hardware.

Re:RIM's best bet

[damn_registrars]

I still think RIM's best bet is to make an enterprise grade 'app' for Apple iOS and Android to provide Blackberry style service on non-RIM hardware.

That is actually a really good idea for them. Unfortunately there is probably someone at RIM who looks at that idea and views it as being parallel to going from being Microsoft (where they were years ago) to being Novell (where they could potentially end up under that idea). And right now, not even Novell wants to be Novell.

They don't seem to see that the alternative - if they do nothing - will end up with them being like Palm.

Forward

[qualityassurancedept]

Or just forward your gmail account emails to your account on your exchange server and read your emails from there instead.

Re:Google Apps Sync?

[taylortbb]

It just means the app. Given Google's desire for Google Apps to be taken seriously in the enterprise I doubt the BES Connector will be discontinued any time soon.

Re:Native apps are faster

[thegarbz]

Javascript is clunky and slow. The computer based browsers may be having a speed war, but on the phone browsers are still either painfully slow or crippled and don't handle Javascript well. On android the gmail app is a great example of that. It's much faster to press a button that fires up the app than to log into gmail, wait for not only the messages to download but the interface as well.

The only exception I have found so far is Facebook. That has to be the poorest app on any platform and I typically log into the Facebook mobile browser page to regain some speed and usability.